STOCKTON SPRINGS – George Bush and John Kerry might want to stop in this town if they plan on being president next year – if only for superstition’s sake.

Voters in this riverside Waldo County village – like only four other Maine towns – have a knack for picking winners, having done so in every race for president, governor and U.S. senator going back more than two decades.

Perhaps nowhere does the political discourse come more freely – and most shortly after sunrise – than Perry’s Store, where customers, fueled by 25-cent cups of coffee, talk about candidates and issues over the boxes of fruit pies and mini-doughnuts on the rack near the counter.

“[Bush] isn’t wishy-washy on what his decisions are,” said Ernest Kalinisan, a 59-year-old retired police officer and registered Republican, who moved to town about four years ago.

Kalinisan, who considers himself a solid Bush supporter, is not often at a loss for words, the other regulars say, and the store’s affable owner, 73-year-old Ed Perry jokingly rolls his eyes and makes talking gestures with his hands when Kalinisan begins his defense of the president.

All kidding aside, Kalinisan’s comments – like most uttered in the store – don’t go unchallenged.

“[Bush] is wishy-washy, too,” chimed in Charlie Kneeland as he flipped through a newspaper. “He didn’t want [the] Homeland Security [Department] and now we got it. He didn’t want the 9-11 commission and now we got it. What the hell’s the other one? He’s got another one he’s wishy-washy on, too.”

Kneeland, a retired maintenance worker and Kerry supporter, has lived in town all of his 78 years. Although a registered Democrat, he’s consistently voted for U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Maine’s two moderate Republicans.

Crossing party lines has also come relatively easy for Kalinisan, who has done so in local elections and voted for Democrat Mike Michaud for Congress in 2002.

As a Democrat, Kneeland is in the decided minority in Stockton Springs, which split from neighboring Prospect in 1857 after the more conservative Stockton ilk chose to assert their independence and support the new Republican Party, according to a history of the town.

Today, Republicans still outnumber Democrats, although independent, or unenrolled, voters easily boast the town’s largest contingent.

Such is the case in the four other towns – Farmington, Dresden, Bremen and Greenwood – that can lay claim to the bellwether title based on their record of picking the winner of every general election since 1980.

Once upon a time, Maine itself was the national bellwether, a distinction that resulted in the political axiom “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.” The state lost that distinction in 1936, when only Maine and Vermont chose Republican Alfred Landon over Franklin D. Roosevelt, prompting the Democratic Party chairman at the time to alter the saying to “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”

In recent presidential elections, Maine voters have been right more often than not when choosing the victor but have been strictly nonpartisan in their divergences. Mainers didn’t like Democrat John Kennedy in 1960, Republican Richard Nixon in 1968, Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 or Republican George W. Bush in 2000.

While a few hours at Perry’s – which town officials call “the other town office” – certainly can’t reliably predict the outcome of the 2004 vote, it perhaps does offer some insight on how Maine voters are framing the election.

The presidential race is high on the list, for sure, but so are the two referendum questions awaiting voters on the November ballot.

If Stockton Springs’ gift for picking winners applies to referendums, the informal survey of about 20 voters here would suggest both the tax cap and the bear baiting ban have a tough road ahead.

While several people said they needed more information on the referendum questions – particularly the tax cap – before making their decision, there was little uncertainty when discussing the presidential race, which both national polls and the informal survey of town voters, suggest will be too close to call.

It’s Bush’s generally popular handling of homeland security issues versus voters’ concern with Maine’s lackluster economy that has kept the polls close, especially in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, analysts say.

In Stockton Springs, Jennifer Brassbridge, a 26-year-old high school chemistry teacher and new mother, said she preferred Bush to handle the continuing war on terrorism.

“The way the world is right now, I almost feel more stable keeping the same person,” said Brassbridge, although disagreeing with Bush on certain domestic issues including his No Child Left Behind Act, which ties federal education funding to test results.

“I just don’t think Kerry’s going to be any better on that,” Brassbridge, an independent, said of the education reforms, which Kerry also supported. Kerry, however, has promised to increase funding for the initiative.

Across the state in Farmington, Emily Floyd, active in town politics for more than 30 years, acknowledges voting for Bush in 2000. The self-described “Margaret Chase Smith Republican” – a reference to her independence – said she wouldn’t do so again.

Floyd, 88, counted stem cell research among her top issues. Last week, Kerry stepped up his criticism of Bush for limiting federal funding for the research, which scientists hope will lead to treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Considering her town’s record of picking winners, she said she’s particularly interested in local results this November.

“I’m sure hoping it’s Kerry this time,” she said.